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Lofts being eyed for old Colgate site

Former Jeffersonville Mayor Tom Galligan is working as a consultant for the company that owns the 55-acre property.

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Richard Jenkins, maintenance director and building historian, Jenkins picks out a piece of the buckled hardwood flooring at the former Colgate-Palmolive plant in Clarksville. IN.(Photo: Frankie Steele, Special to The CJ)Buy Photo

Dozens of loft apartments, an international-themed lifestyle center with pedestrian-friendly shops and technology businesses using an existing data center.

Those are among the latest ideas for the South Clarksville site that opened as Indiana's second prison in 1847 and later became a Colgate-Palmolive Co. manufacturing plant, a complex of 19th- and 20th-century buildings that developers envision someday will offer residents, shoppers and tourists dramatic views of the downtown Louisville skyline.

Former Jeffersonville Mayor Tom Galligan has been recently working as a consultant for the company that owns the 55-acre property, Clarks Landing Enterprise Investments LLC, which is managed by local gerontologist and entrepreneur Dr. Jay Sheth.

"What we're trying to do is make this a destination point," Galligan said, noting a hotel and convention center connected by an atrium also would be included in the long-term plan.

The site is a short walk or bike ride from the Clark Memorial and Big Four bridges, which Sheth and Galligan said has led to interest in recent months from Louisville corporations looking for nearby apartments to house temporary workers.

Within 12 to 24 months, Galligan said they want to have completed construction of 96 units in buildings that once contained prison cells, and possibly more if the demand is there.

Galligan said the owner also has been in talks recently with Cooper Carry, an internationally known architectural, planning and design firm based in Atlanta, about refining this and other details in a new plan.

The complex has sat largely vacant since Colgate closed in 2007, but Galligan said redevelopment activities will pick up in the coming months.

"These buildings have got a lot of history, and what we've got to figure out is how we're going to make the buildings that are historic work in today's marketplace and be profitable," he said.

The Clarksville Historic Preservation Commission gave the developer its blessing on its plan to seek a demolition permit early next year for Building 38, also known as the Ajax building, and a loading dock behind the main buildings along South Clark Boulevard, to open access for a new interior road, Galligan said.

It also plans to soon demolish the former Colgate sewer plant off East Montgomery Ave.

Colgate bought the property from the state in 1921 and operated a plant that produced toothpaste, and other personal hygiene products at various times, until 2007.

Its iconic clock, still one of the largest in the world, originally was installed in 1906 at Colgate's plant in Jersey City, N.J, overlooking the Hudson River across from Lower Manhattan until Colgate replaced it with a slightly larger one and moved the old one to Clarksville in 1924.

Boston Development Group LLC, the Sheth-managed company that bought the property in 2011, transferred ownership to Clarks Landing Enterprise Investments LLC in August, according to county property records. A foreclosure lawsuit filed against Boston Development was dismissed in May.

A 267-acre, mixed-use zoning district was created in 2008 for the wider Clark's Landing area that stretches from the river to Stansifer Avenue and the town council approved the Clark's Landing North master plan for 40 acres at the old Colgate site in 2012.

Clarksville town officials have since installed new sewer connections there and are planning a $2.25 million extension of Court Avenue through Water Tower Square in hopes of spurring development and improving pedestrian access in the area impacted by the Ohio River Bridges Project.

Town officials also are expected to select a planning consultant that will conduct a comprehensive study of South Clarksville land use and transportation, soliciting ideas from residents and business leaders to find ways to make the Clark's Landing area more enticing. Like the smaller Clark's Landing North plan, it also would consider and update the 2012 plan.

Reporter Charlie White can be reached at (812) 949-4026 or on Twitter @c_write.